Why Mental Health Awareness is So Important to Policing

I want to talk about a global issue. It’s not an easy subject. It doesn’t segregate based on sexual orientation, race, gender or occupation. In fact, it doesn’t segregate at all. It doesn’t prowl on the weak because they are easy targets and it doesn’t attack the strong out of jealousy or envy. It’s around every corner; sometimes lurking in the shadows and sometimes standing in broad daylight. What is this mysterious creature that is often so terrifying in silence? Depression. Depression or the various forms of mental health disorders affect all of us in one way or another. (…)

If you think about the aspects of being a solider or a police officer, they are expected to have it together all the time. As a society, we don’t allow them to be human. We don’t allow them to be flawed. We don’t allow them to be human. We have forced them to keep shoving more grief and more compartmentalized emotions into their own emotional suitcases until it finally busts at the seams.